


The Dinner

by completetheory



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works
Genre: Abortion (mentioned), Catholicism (mentioned), Character Critical, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29735484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completetheory/pseuds/completetheory
Summary: Sketch about Randolph Carter and Nodens the Hunter, with a little Nyarlathotep and Mason thrown in.
Kudos: 7





	The Dinner

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MadScientific](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadScientific/gifts).



Randolph Carter dreamed.

In his dream, mighty Nodens, the bearded and pious, as white as any European Almighty, sat at the head of a banquet table and spoke kindly words.

"It is odd to me that the mortals of Earth are afraid. Is chocolate not sweet? Are little toys, beloved one moment and discarded by the millions the next, not wondrous? Even your "global warming" is nothing but a gorgeous summer day to you. When your annihilation comes, and it will be me, you will welcome it with beatific smiles and open arms. You love your horrors. The cleverest of you love me the best. In the future, you will unleash radiation and bio engineered viruses, not content with natural disasters."

In the logic of dreams, Carter found none of this alarming. He was indeed the cleverest. And he liked Nodens. This was a good God. A deity the Catholic Church, with their moral standing so unimpinged by the passage of time and writ atrocity, who would fit a treat on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel.

Nothing he said could be wrong. He opposed Nyarlathotep, the Messenger, the one who Carter's beloved Puritan ancestors knew to be Satan, the Tempter. The same ancestors who killed dangerous old women and dangerous landowners for being witches! And it was only right that they then acquired that land and maintained their piety. That was their due. 

Also, had not Nodens protected Carter in the Dreamlands? Of course! There would be no reason for anyone to oppose a foul god, lest they be a good god themself. 

"My beloved Hunter," and Carter found nothing wrong, too, with calling him that, "I think you quite correct. We mortals are clever. We can identify enemies in our midst and hang them as witches." He still was thinking of the Salem times, quite enjoying the idea of being descended from a line of brave fighters of evil. He was _not_ thinking of the time he sat paralyzed outside a tomb in the middle of the night, unable to venture down and try to rescue his friend or die nobly in the attempt. No, fighting evil was best kept in the past and in the hypothetical. Fewer limbs lost that way.

"In the name of Jesus, love and mercy, my son, who is also me, did your ancestors kill the followers of Nyarlathotep and Cthulhu." Agreed Nodens, "And, I am also Zeus, ruler of Olympus. In many forms I visit to bless mankind."

Zeus! Another wholesome, strong figure of masculine righteousness. Carter, comfortable in his intellectual identity, with little muscle to call his own, yet gravitated to his perceived superior, as a hoofed pack animal might defer to a man with a gun. 

Did not every young impressionable mortal wish to follow a barbarian? 

It was so nice to be able to just kill people you disagreed with, but nicer still to consider them wicked and sinful first. Less ambiguity that way.

"Try the fish." Nodens invited. 

It was filled with plastic and candy wrappers. Carter did not wish to be impolite, and so ate around it without comment. He noticed bits of old toy, discarded and forgotten... Things he had played with as a child, which had broken and were tossed away. 

"Where is Nyarlathotep?" Carter asked, after a pause. 

Nodens scowled. "Where isn't he. In the fern and the river delta. In the whorls of fate and chance. But no matter. At the end of days, I shall win. It is foretold." 

Carter smiled. He liked that idea very much.

Outside the citadel, Nyarlathotep sat brooding in one of his marauding forms. Even hunched as he was, his head was still level with the head of Keziah Mason, and he knew her to be troubled by the meeting inside. 

"God is in that seat." Mason said. 

"Indeed He is." Nyarlathotep dislocated one of his many hind legs to scratch an itch behind his head, finding it satisfying to banish. Unbothered. What was, had been, and would yet be. 

Mason was quiet a while, gathering her old rags about herself. She leaned on Nyarlathotep, and he allowed it. "When the women of the village came to me with their dead little ones," She murmured, "Knowing I had the gift to quit the child from inside them. And not wanting their babies to be buried like trash outside the holy church ground... I hid their dead in my home. And I burned with hate for their God and His servants." 

"I know." Nyarlathotep murmured. "It is why I came to you." 

"Why did you come to him?" Mason asked, gesturing toward the building. Meaning, Randolph Carter, Nyarlathotep supposed.

"Mmm." The hind-claws flexed, the soft wings folded. Nyarlathotep shifted comfortably. "In our language, 'many' is 'thousand.' The 'thousand young' of the Black Goat - too many to be counted. My thousand forms - many, many forms. I come to everyone. Just to see. I came to him with an amusement. He is a..." 

Nyarlathotep paused to find a word, not quite sold on any of them. He shrugged, and decided, "A case study. But he is now and will always be the property of Nodens, because he wills it so. We decide which advice we listen to - at whose feet we sit and learn. He is no longer a child." 

Mason felt the tough, leathery skin under her wrinkled fingers, "What shall we do?" 

"About him? Nothing." Nyarlathotep turned to the west, the direction from which the sun set and granted him crepuscular blessings. Before them, away from the citadel, the entire alien world stretched out, unknown and unexplored in every dimension, higher and lower. 

Nyarlathotep's mouths all smiled. "Generally, though. We might do whatever we please."


End file.
